2015-03-27 - Friday Prayer - Sheikh Khalil Abdul Rasheed

Khutbah: The Dunya as a Game — Avoiding Attachment to This World

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, we seek His help, we seek His guidance, we believe in Him, and we put our trust in Him. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the evils of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him, and whosoever He leads astray, none can guide him. And we bear witness that there is no god but Allah, one and only, with no partner. And we bear witness that our Master, our Prophet, our Greatest, our Beloved, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions.

The Quranic Description of This World

Know that the life of this world is but a game and amusement and adornment, and boasting among yourselves, and rivalry in wealth and children.

Hubb al-Dunya: The Root of All Errors

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, has informed us that this material life that we are in is the source of a particular illness. And he said:

(Reported by al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab al-Iman; attributed to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and also transmitted as a statement of 'Isa ibn Maryam in various narrations)

Love of the world — love of the dunya — meaning attaching one's heart to the dunya, is the head, meaning the source, the foundation, of every single error, every single sin. Every khati'ah — error or sin — is in reality something that distances us from Allah Ta'ala. Therefore, the more that we attach ourselves and the more that we love this world, the further we get from Allah Ta'ala, or the more that we detach ourselves from His nearness.

Brothers and sisters, the topic of today's khutbah is about this game — that's what I call it, that's what the Quran calls it — this game that we are in. We can choose to play the game of this hayat al-dunya according to the rules of the dunya, or we may exist in the dunya according to alternative rules. Allah Ta'ala alerts us to the danger of playing the game according to the rules of the game.

The Five Stages of Being Devoured by the Dunya

He says in Surah Al-Hadid — a very powerful, profound ayah, if we reflect on it — اعْلَمُوا: bear in mind, keep in mind. اعْلَمُوا أَنَّمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا — that the life of this world — لَعِبٌ — first He says it is a game. The life of this world is لَعِبٌ, it is a game. What is meant by that is something very specific — not that it is a joke, but that it has its own rules and its own temptations.

لَعِبٌ — it is a game — and once you get pulled into that game, you start to play it according to the rules of the game. Then you get pulled in a little further: وَلَهْوٌ — and then it becomes a distraction. First it takes your attention; you decide you want to get involved in the game, and then it becomes لَهْوٌ, a distraction, so you start to focus on the game, your priorities become the rules of the game.

And then a transformation occurs. لَعِبٌ — then it becomes لَهْوٌ — a distraction, takes your attention. Then what your attention is pulled to and you are sucked into, it becomes an attraction: زِينَةٌ. It starts to pull you deeper and deeper. You get sucked into the game, you become a victim, trapped by the game, entranced, ensnared by the game. In a very similar fashion that some predatory animals use something very decorative to attract their prey — and when the prey comes, it snatches and devours the prey — the dunya is like that. This زِينَةٌ that is here is not a real attraction; it is meant to pull us deeper into the game, it is meant to devour us — not in the bodily sense, but it is meant to make us victims in the spiritual, ma'nawi, qalbi, ruhi sense.

Once you become a victim of the game, once you become distracted by the game, once you are obsessed with playing the game, then at that point, Allah Ta'ala says: وَتَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ — then this world teaches you to boast and brag, and you become a character of the game. You lose your identity completely, so much so that you obtain a better identity as a player of the game. And so you brag and you boast about how well you play the game, how successful the game has made you, and all of the delights and the gifts and the bounties and the material provisions that you have amassed and earned by playing the game.

And then at the very end, your predicament becomes very different, and Allah Ta'ala says: وَتَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ. At the very end, that game — which you entered into thinking it was going to be fun and bring you happiness and tranquility and peace — in the end it becomes تَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ, which means it becomes a tool of rivalry. تَكَاثُرٌ means yes, to make more money and to build up and build up and build up, but as you were building up and amassing and earning a lot of money and children and property and fame and everything, you caused others to have less. That is the end result — it is rivalry. It is not just about you earning; it is about you getting and others losing.

Think about the traditional board game that is on the market today — Monopoly, for example. You go around, you play the game, you get houses, you buy property, you get wealth, every time you pass Go you collect $200, and you just keep playing and playing and playing and buying property and getting wealth. And there is no end. And eventually those that enter the game — there is no camaraderie, there is a rivalry that ensues. And at the end, what begins in a joyful manner ends in an aggressive rivalry relationship.

Allah Ta'ala is saying the dunya is like that. When you enter it according to its rules, its standards, the way it wants things to be, you get pulled in, you get sucked in, you become devoured, you become a victim, you change — and your relationship with others changes. That is the hayat al-dunya. And that relationship with others is not just a human relationship; that relationship means the nature of our connection not just with human beings but with animals, with the environment, and most importantly with our Creator and Maker Ta'ala.

The ayah continues, and then Allah Ta'ala says at the very end: وَمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا مَتَاعُ الْغُرُورِ. This life, this worldly life, is only an illusion of pleasure. It is only a mirage — it is not real pleasure. It is the illusion, the false presentation, a deception, pleasure in disguise. In other words, it is not the real thing. So what you are looking for by playing this game and focusing on this game and putting everything into this game — that real pleasure and satisfaction and peace of mind and contentment — if you are looking for it in this hayat al-dunya, you will be tricked, you will be fooled, you will be disappointed, you will be let down, you will be disgraced, and you will be the cause of other people's disappointment and other people's loss.

The Spiritual Heart Disease

By playing the game, focusing on this dunya according to its rules, a love of the game enters into our qulub — our hearts — and that is the source of all errors according to the Prophet. That is the source of all our psychological, emotional, spiritual, and as a by-product, physical diseases.

The American Medical Association says that the number one killer in the American context — the number one killer of Americans in the medical context — is heart disease. How poetic. The number one spiritual killer according to the Prophet and that hadith is also heart disease — in the form of hubb al-dunya. And like the remedy of each disease, its opposite is the best way to cure it. If you have high blood pressure, you decrease your intake of salt. You have diabetes, you decrease and watch your intake of sugar. If you are overweight, you watch your intake of fatty foods. You have too much dunya, so you need to detach yourself — not in the physical sense necessarily, but in the qalbi sense, in your relationships, in the nature of your attachments to the world. So you detach yourself from dunya and you start to prioritize and focus and cultivate a love and a desire for akhira.

That refocusing, that re-shifting of priorities, that change — that occurs first inside and then resonates externally — that begins with iman and exits with al-ihsan. So that awareness that my akhira is more important than my dunya — that statement right there is what Imam al-Ghazali said. That is the pinnacle of intelligence. An intelligent person is not bound by how many certificates they have or how much money they have. According to Imam al-Ghazali, the intelligent person is the one who knows that my akhira is more important than my dunya.

The Rules of the Heavens vs. the Rules of the Earth

Therefore, the rules of engagement for dealing with the dunya — for existing in the dunya, for living off of and inside of the dunya and going through the dunya — those rules of engagement may not be according to the terms of the dunya. They should first be couched in the terms of the akhira. And therefore, what I do in the dunya, how I live in the dunya, what I earn in the dunya and how I exist in the dunya must be positioned within the rigorous boundaries and frameworks and the language of the shari'ah. Therefore, everything I do, before I do it, I must ask myself: What is the hukm of Allah on this issue? What does the shari'ah say on this issue? What is the fiqh of this issue? Is it halal or is it haram? Is it ja'iz or is it not? Did the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, encourage it or not? Did his companions do something like this, act in this way, encourage this behavior or not?

The way the material world operates will drive us to making one type of decision — it will orient us in one direction. That is the rules of the world; they function in a particular way. But then the heavenly rules — the samawi rules — they function a little bit differently sometimes. That is why the scholars, the ulama, say that if you, for example, have a choice — to use a simple example — you are trying to determine which direction the qibla is for your salah, and you have two types of rules, two types of dala'il, two types of evidence:

One evidence is the evidence of the world itself. Let's say you are outside, trying to determine the qibla, and you look at the trees and you see that on the tree there is moss growing on one side. And you know, because of your knowledge of the world and the environment, that moss only grows on a particular side of the tree. So you use that earthly dalil — the rules of the world — to orient you and determine your qibla. That is one evidence.

But then you have a second evidence. Let's say in the evening you want to determine the qibla, and you look up to the heavens and you discover the North Star, and so you use that — you use the heavenly dala'il, the heavenly proofs — as your source to guide your behavior. And the scholars say that if you have a choice between the earthly proofs and the heavenly proofs, the heavenly proofs are aqwa — stronger, more preferable, more beneficial, and better. This is part of the general rule of prioritization: the rules of the sama', the rules of the heavens, are hierarchical — because they are above, they are superior.

And so when we have a decision to make and the rules of the world guide us in one direction, and logic tells us this direction, but the rules and the beliefs of the heavens — the revelation — tell us a slightly different direction, those rules take priority. That is, by the way, brothers and sisters, the meaning of deen actually. The theological, the aqidi, usuli definition of deen — as in "to you your deen and to me mine" — the definition of deen is وَضْعٌ إِلَهِيٌّ: it is a divine arrangement, a system that comes from the heavens, from Allah Ta'ala, who is the Khaliq, the Creator of the heavens. That is the hierarchy — wad'un ilahi. It is a heavenly system, not an earthly system. It is a system before and beyond earth. It comes from the heavens.

So deen originates from above. And that system — that divine structure, which resonates with a heavenly order — sa'iqun, it drives, it functions and orients أُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ — intelligent people. That system is supposed to drive and motivate and push and move people with sound minds. And what is meant by sound minds? Those individuals who know that their akhira is more important than their dunya — not materialistic people with a high IQ. This heavenly system is meant to drive and motivate people with sound intellect, people whose intellect prioritizes the akhira above and beyond the dunya, and it pushes those people with sound minds toward ikhtiyar mahmud — praiseworthy choices. As you know, mahmud means praiseworthy. It pushes them and drives them to make decisions that are informed — not just rationally informed, yes they are rational, but they are also spiritually rational, informed in the worldly consequences and also in the spiritual consequences.

Decision-Making: A Lesson from the Youth

I was teaching my youth on Thursday night and I was teaching them about decision-making. I said, "Would you rather go to a place called Kazakhstan or would you rather go to a place called Üsküdar?" None of them knew what Üsküdar was, so they said, "Well, we'd like to go to Kazakhstan." I said, "Why Kazakhstan? Why do you choose that over Üsküdar?" They said, "Well, because we know the name Kazakhstan." I said, "Because you know the name? And the name you don't know, you don't choose? How much do you know about Kazakhstan? Can you speak Kazakh? Tell me about Kazakhstan, what do you know?" They said, "Well, we don't know much, we just heard the name before." I said, "That's not decision-making."

I said, "Let me give you another example. Would you rather go to Üsküdar or Kabardash?" — two names they had no idea about. They said, "Well, we'd like to go to Üsküdar." I said, "Why?" "Because you just said it." I said, "What kind of decision-making is this?"

The culture that the dunya teaches you is to make decisions first and think about it second — like the slogan says, "Just do it." So you just do it, you don't think about it, you just react, as if we are just synapses in nervous systems. That is not what religion teaches us to do. It teaches us a human system that is supposed to drive us, orient us in a way that prioritizes one thing over another, so that we can make proper, praiseworthy, well-informed decisions — and these praiseworthy decisions are based upon ilm, knowledge.

Salah fi al-Hal wa al-Maab: Goodness Now and in the Hereafter

Why are these praiseworthy, well-informed decisions important? لِلصَّلَاحِ فِي الْحَالِ — so that we may become reformed and corrected now. So that we can play the game in the right way — orient ourselves in the dunya in the correct way — in a way that doesn't allow us to become distracted by the dunya (la'b), in a way that doesn't allow us to get attached to and attracted by the dunya (zina), in a way that doesn't allow us to become full characters of the dunya (tafakhur), so that our role models are people in pop music or Hollywood.

We don't want to be characters of the world like that. That is not who we are, and that is not who we want our children to be. We want صَلَاحٌ فِي الْحَالِ — goodness and righteousness and peace and justice right now. Why? So that we can have صَلَاحٌ فِي الْمَآبِ — success in the next life. Because if we have villainy and corruption and selfish people and arrogance and lying and disparity and hypocrisy and discrimination and racism and terrorism in this life, then we have no standing, no relationship with Allah to put us in a good position in that life.

That is the danger of hubb al-dunya — of getting into the game for the sake of the game and losing focus of the fact that we are not supposed to be characters of the game. We are supposed to be عِبَادُ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الَّذِينَ يَمْشُونَ عَلَى الْأَرْضِ هَوْنًا — we are supposed to be servants of the Rahman. We are supposed to understand that there are characters of the game out there and these people play the game, but the rules that they play by are not the rules that we play by. We have different rules. Our rules tell us to be above the game. Our rules alert us to the fact that there are attractions out there that are meant to pull us down, not up — distractions out there that are meant to divert our attention — and false presentations out there that are meant to cultivate a mindset and a lifestyle of nifaq and falsehood and hypocrisy.

We are supposed to know these things and be aware and alert to them, and we are not to have our guard down.

The Culture of Leisure and the Loss of Spiritual Vigilance

One of the beautiful profound things about Allah Ta'ala's description of the dunya — His first description of it as a game — is the fact that when you sit around, if you think of the human, American cultural sense of sitting down and playing a game, like sitting down and playing Monopoly or Uno or a video game as a family, it is called "leisure time." One of the things about this dunya is that it teaches and reinforces a lifestyle based on leisure — on taking a break from hard work.

Ibn Khaldun, in his profound text, says that the society that is very urban and technologically sophisticated — what he calls creatively advanced — tends to invent ways of technology so that other things can do things for them, and they can sit and engage in a culture of leisure. And he says a culture of leisure is truly a life of a game. And what that does is it allows you to drop your spiritual guard. In other words, you get so relaxed and you are used to such vacation time and you are used to having so much fun and rest and relaxation, that the idea of jihad — the idea of striving and struggling and being strong — that feeling, that idea of staying in shape both physically and spiritually, that idea of staying strong and keeping your guard up — we lose that at the spiritual level.

He says: those individuals that live a lifestyle of comfort and ease, they prefer a life of physical softness — so they become spiritually soft. And individuals that don't have the conveniences of modern life, that have a lifestyle where they have to work hard day in and day out and sacrifice and strive — these individuals have a hard life, but the benefit is that they are tough in akhlaq. They have their guard up. They are ready to stand in defense of their land and to protect themselves from Shaytan, because they are constantly accustomed to never taking a break, never sitting down, never indulging. They don't have that luxury. And so there is a seriousness and a protectedness that those people who work hard and strive hard are experiencing — that individuals who indulge in a life of comfort and luxury lose.

That is the secret of Allah's description of this dunya as a game: people get pulled into the game because they prefer a life of comfort and luxury, and they forget that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, described Jannah. He said:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Hadith 6778; Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6487)

The barrier of Jannah is surrounded by things that are hard and difficult, and the barrier of the Fire is surrounded by things that are full of comfort and luxury. And so when we desire so much comfort and luxury that we lose the daily drive to push us into striving harder spiritually and physically — and we just get victimized by the lazy culture of leisure that we are born into — then we become thrown in, we become characters of the game, and we lose the flow of struggle that is needed to propel us into Jannah.

Closing Du'a

We ask Allah to keep us strong in our himmah. We ask Allah to allow us not to become victims of this game. We ask Allah to give us quwwah and strength, to give us the power to do righteous deeds, to give us the energy to worship Him correctly, so that we may be guided by the shari'ah and the fiqh lifestyle, and orient our dunya in that manner, and protect ourselves from tafakhur and takathur and la'b and lahw and zinah — these attributes and descriptions of the dunya — so that we may become healthy in the spiritual sense and in the physical sense.

O servants of Allah, fear Allah. Indeed, Allah commands justice and excellence and giving to relatives, and He forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you so that perhaps you will be reminded.

Announcement: Good Tree Academy

I am speaking today on behalf of Good Tree Academy of Allen, Texas. It is about 5 miles northeast of here. Good Tree was founded in Richardson, Texas in 2009, and we had 18 students that first year. In 2013 we moved to Allen and rented a building. Our projected enrollment for next year is over 150 students, and we are looking for more students. So we invite you to enroll your children there.